Cycling advocates from Calgary and Edmonton are delivering thousands of handwritten postcards to the Alberta legislature on Friday as part of a campaign urging the province to drop planned legislation that could restrict new bike lanes and allow existing ones to be torn out. Bike Calgary teamed up with Edmonton-based Paths for People for the delivery, bringing hundreds of postcards collected in Calgary over the summer to add to the more than 2,000 gathered in Edmonton at festivals, markets, bike shops and community events. “I think it’s going way too far to say, ‘let’s just rip out entire sections,’” said Bike Calgary’s Doug Clark. “We have a very delicate network. It has very little redundancy. Any construction or anything that happens on it really puts a dent in the ability to move around outside of a car. “So protecting what we have and and building on it is absolutely necessary.” Organizers say the postcards include stories from parents riding with their children, students who can’t afford a car, and people who can no longer drive. Safety, affordability and independence were recurring themes. “These postcards show that bike lanes are not about politics, they’re about people,” said Terry Skidnuk, a Paths for People board member, in a release. The postcards are addressed to Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen, with advocates hoping the stories will help shape the legislation before it’s introduced this fall. The province has said it wants to address concerns about traffic congestion and road capacity, particularly where bike lanes have replaced driving lanes. It launched an online portal this summer to collect complaints, asking about impacts business access and emergency response times. Dreeshen said the legislation is being developed to make transportation infrastructure work for all road users. Other representatives of the movement say bike lanes have become a symbol of a larger conflict in society. “It feels like this whole bike lane topic has become a culture war issue, where instead of looking at facts and data, we’re playing to online talking points,” said Aaron Budnick with YEG by Coalition. “(The postcards) will be delivered to Minister Dreeshen to let him know that people in the community want to see more bike lanes. We want to see the ones we’ve already got protected. We don’t want to see them lost because they increase safety for all users, including drivers.” Municipal decision The campaign centres on provincial legislation expected this fall that would give the province more say over bike lanes, a move advocates argue could force cities to remove existing routes at taxpayer expense while limiting new ones. That argument has backing in Calgary’s city hall. Ward 7 Coun. Myke Atkinson has said decisions about local bike lanes should be left to the city. Mayor Jeromy Farkas has also pushed back, previously calling the province’s focus on bike lanes “symbolic virtue-signalling.” “We are asking the government of Alberta to carefully consider residents’ lived experiences and to respect municipalities’ ability to make transportation decisions based on local needs,” Skidnuk said. Clark hopes the initiative will make the government take notice. “We just want to hopefully provide a voice that may temper that, or maybe, like I said, return that decision back to the cities and not waste taxpayer money on the province doing things that the city is more than capable of doing.”
